Helms suggests in the book that he favored voluntary racial integration that would have come about without pressure from the federal government, or from civil rights protests — which he said only sharpened racial antagonisms.

“We will never know how integration might have been achieved in neighborhoods across our land, because the opportunity was snatched away by outside agitators who had their own agendas to advance. We certainly do know the price paid by the stirring of hatred, the encouragement of violence, the suspicion and distrust.”

11 Responses to “Just Hurry Up & Fucking Die Dept.”

Remind me again why Lincoln opposed succession? The North could have still put the south to the sword and we could still have had the emacipation proclamation, but with none of this crappy reconstruction and ‘respectin’ southern heritage’ crap. I don’t respect the Afrikaaner diehards in South Africa; why should I display even basic human civility to a dick with a rebel flag?
P.S. Skynrd sucks.

Had Lincoln done to the Rebels (executed the traitors including Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis) what Truman did to the Nazis (he did indeed execute the Nazis), we would not be having the Southern Leaguers, Council of Conservative Citizens and other rebel flag waving rednecks today! Hell had Lincoln done his job thoroughly we may not even have had Nazi Germany and fascist Italy!

this seems like as good a time as any to state the obvious — that not all white southerners are racist fucks, and that happy-go-lucky integration & harmony hasn’t always been found in every corner of the northeast. But we’ll talk about Fenway Park another time.

The Red Sox, the Yawkeys, and the anti-busing Southies are stains on our New England character, as was the fact that 10% of all Northern white protestant men were in or affiliated with the KKK in the 20s; I’ll be the first to admit it. Indeed, as a transplanted Brit, I’m none too proud of the way we English conducted ourselves in the empire. However; these anomalies (such as the existence of the British Union of Fascists in the 30s or the BNP today, to cite examples from home) does not fully equate to a institutionalized, government-enshrined form of rascism such as existed in the south, a system that has never been apologised for, and has been allowed to exist in folk-memory as a glorious chapter in history worth fighting for. To summarize: everyone is an asshole, but some are more assholey than others. Or would Popr Benedict call that relativism?

Wisdom Weasal: A Civil War and leveling the South isn’t “apology” enough for you? Bush denounced it again last year in Africa. Even Public Enemy sees slavery as a worldwide problem, which included the British. Bush went off on slavery in 2003. As for Britiain’s historical “anomalies” with fascism, what do you call the monarchy? Isn’t fascism and totalitariamisn the norm for the UK? Other “anomalies” include India, The Troubles, China and the opium trade, the Balfour agreement that’s still making the Middle East a nightmare, and Posh-Beckham.

it’s hard for me to stay mad at a region that gave and continues to give us WAFFLE HOUSE. oh, and take a look at their jukeboxes some time…there’s a whole collection of songs that were recorded specially for the chain (“grill operator” etc). matador’s occasionally in the Historic Reissue game, right?